Category Archives: State Legislature

Kudos to the JS

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Kathleen Gallagher’s outstanding story yesterday on the state’s pending $250 million corporate giveaway really brought home the almost unbelievable disregard for taxpayers, common sense and good government with which this political payback is being pursued. Gov. Scott Walker and legislators are proposing to Hand a “$250 million fund to out-of-state financial management companies that would not have to pay back the fund’s principal and would keep up to 80% of its profits.” Wow. What a great deal. For somebody.

The cherry on top of the scoop of outrage was the layout of the story’s jump. It was next to a jump of a story about 21 Milwaukee Public Schools nurses losing their jobs because Walker is proposing to cut a $1.5 million grant that helps pay for them.

A $250 million giveaway for big business vs. $1.5 million for nursing services for mostly impoverished children. Not a tough choice for the gov, apparently.

Nice package, JS.

Joint Finance hits energy-savings fund

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From the Citizens Utility Board:

Joint Finance Committee Cuts Energy Efficiency, Raises Energy Bills

MADISON — Today the Joint Committee on Finance unfortunately voted to reduce funding for Focus on Energy, Wisconsin’s statewide energy efficiency program.  

On a party-line vote, the Republican members of the Joint Finance Committee rolled back the  budget for Focus on Energy to about $100 million annually.
 
In November 2010, the Public Service Commission proposed new energy savings goals for Focus on Energy, along with proposed budgets to meet those goals.  The energy savings goals and budgets were approved by the Joint Finance Committee in December 2010, when the Democrats were in the majority.  The approved energy savings goals and budgets, along with estimates of savings to consumers, were:

With today’s vote, the finance committee is essentially imposing an energy tax on consumers by cutting investments in energy efficiency.  Because every dollar invested in Focus on Energy reduces energy bills for consumers by at least $2.50, these cuts will likely increase future energy bills by at least $800 million. 
 
In addition, these cuts in investments in energy efficiency will also reduce the number of jobs that would otherwise be created by Focus on Energy.  Focus on Energy will not be able to serve all the customers that desire energy efficiency improvements.  More than 2 million residents and businesses have saved nearly $2 billion on their energy bills since Focus was created in 2001.
 
The vote to cut investments in Focus on Energy is another step backward for Wisconsin households and businesses, who will face higher energy bills if these cuts are ultimately included in the biennial budget for 2011-2013.

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The Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin is a member-supported, nonprofit organization that advocates for reliable and affordable utility service. CUB represents the interests of residential, farm, and small business customers of electric, natural gas, and telecommunication utilities before the Legislature, regulatory agencies, and the courts. Full disclosure: I’m on the CUB board, but the organization does not have anything to do with this blog.

These Republicans want to raise your property taxes

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There’s a gang of Republicans looking to raise property taxes throughout the state. They are State Senators Joe Leibham (Sheboygan) and Dale Schultz (Richland Center), joined in their tax-boosting ways by Republican State Representatives Daniel LeMahieu (Cascade) and Richard Spanbauer (Oshkosh). Independent Bob Ziegelbauer(Manitowoc)  also is part of the taxing gang.

These bright lights of property tax restraint (hah!) want to create yet another new property tax exemption that would actually increase property taxes for everyone who does not qualify for it.
And who is it the Raise-Your-Taxes Gang of Five wants to endow with a nice gift by slipping the rest of us the bill? Why, it’s that crucial driver of economic development — nonprofit-owned resale shops!
Yes, in the happy land of cutting tax breaks for your friends, the bill these gents introduced last week would allow any nonprofit business (which can be quite lucrative!)  to operate used-good stores and weasel out of paying property taxes on it. Since it still takes money to pay for things like police and fire protection and libraries, the rest of us pick up the amount dodged by the nonprofit resale owners. Here’s the best part: the nonprofit would not actually have to do anything considered charitable or community-enhancing with its resale shop to earn this tax break — the shop would would simply have to exist. What a deal!
(Note to property tax-paying non-profit organizations — if this bill passes, you might want to throw a few pairs of old jeans on a shelf, put price tags on ‘em and call yourself a resale shop. Presto! No property tax bill!)
So much for the property tax burden and how it should be reduced.
Guess just for friends of the five and not for the rest of us.

Waiting for Leah

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I dropped a note to State Sen. Leah Vukmir’s office to tell her I supported the city’s employee residency requirement and opposed her effort to do away with it for some employees.

Her aide wrote back asking for my phone number and address (to ensure I was a constitutent, I assume) and said he would have Leah get in touch.

This was a more than a few days ago now, and i’m still waiting for Leah.

Hmm, wonder if it was the word “Milwaukee” in my address that led her to blow me off. Ah, well. The Story Hill Neighborhood Association has invited her to attend the quarterly meeting on Monday night to discuss the potential impacts of the proposed state budget.

And the odds of her showing up are… ?

Mind-boggling hypocrisy by Senate Republicans

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Fresh from telling local governments what they are allowed to bargain with some local employees and what they must bargain with other employees, some Senate Republicans are complaining that the federal government is messing too much in state affairs.

It’s enough to gag a maggot, as my late, blessed mother would say.

Republican State Senators Joe Leibham (Sheboygan), Mary Lazich (West Bend), Neal Kedzie (Elkhorn) and Pam Galloway (Wausau) are sponsoring a resolution complaining that “states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government” even though it’s supposed to be the other way around under the US Constitution’s Tenth Amendment.

The four either do not see or do not care about the irony or hypocrisy in interfering so very heavily in local affairs while whining about federal interference in state affairs. They want the Senate to claim, on behalf of the state, “sovereignty…over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution.”

But wait! There is more!

The fearless foursome state “that this resolution shall serve as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of its constitutionally delegated powers.”

Yeah, you tell ‘em!

And give local governments and public employees their rights back, too.

You can just hear those knees quaking in Washington, can’t you?